Thread: Perry's Staff disputes CIS Texas Immigrant jobs numbers.

More Jobs in Texas Went to Immigrants Than Natives

by Julian Aguilar9/22/2011 23 CommentsPrint

More jobs in Texas...but more people looking too. Update:

Gov. Perry's communications director, Ray Sullivan, emailed the Tribune Friday morning to contest the findings in the CIS’s report. Sullivan suggests the 40 percent figure is wrong and cites the report’s own data to bolster his claim.

Below is the statement from Mr. Sullivan:

America's unsecured border is a huge problem and the states are left with the resulting challenges, especially big states like California, Texas and Florida. In light of the federal government's failure to secure the border, Governor Perry has championed border security, authorizing $400 million from Texas to fight border crime, and called for penalties against employers who hire illegal immigrants and an end to sanctuary city policies.

However, the numbers contained in and the conclusion of the CIS report are really off base and wrong. A central conclusion of this report is “40 percent of all the job growth in Texas since 2007 went to newly arrived illegal immigrants.


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This finding is false. The numbers don’t add up.

Since Jan. 2007, Texas has created 384,700 net new jobs. Source: Texas Jobs Statistics from US Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics/Total Nonfarm Seasonally Adjusted Change from Jan. 2007 – Aug. 2011 (Jan. 2007: 10,230,300 to Aug. 2011: 10,615,000)

40% of 384,700 jobs is 153,880 jobs.

The Department of Homeland Security data cited in the CIS report estimates that 60,000 illegal immigrants have arrived in Texas since 2007. Source: Department of Homeland Security report, Page 4, http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/stat ... e_2010.pdf

So if Texas created 384,700 jobs since 2007 and 40% of that is 153,880… and the CIS says 60,000 illegal immigrants arrived in Texas since 2007, then their conclusion must be false and numerically impossible.

Original story:

Native-born Texans who were seeking employment likely lost out to competition from immigrants in recent years, according to a conservative think tank that advocates for limited migration to the country.

The data, compiled by the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies, may provide some low-hanging fruit for Gov. Rick Perry’s Republican opponents. Perry has been attacked from the right on immigration with his field of challengers alleging he’s been too soft on illegal immigrants in Texas. The study estimates that population benefited from Texas’ job growth the last four years more than citizens.

The center found that of the 279,000 jobs created in Texas since the second quarter of 2007, 225,000 — about 80 percent — went to legal and illegal immigrants. The center says that while “no estimate of illegal immigration is exact,â€

Who Benefited from Job Growth In Texas?

A Look at Employment Gains for Immigrants and the Native-Born, 2007 to 2011

By Steven A. Camarota, Ashley Monique Webster
September 2011
Memorandums

A Look at Employment Gains for Immigrants and the Native-Born, 2007 to 2011

Download a pdf of this Memorandum http://www.cis.org/articles/2011/immigr ... -texas.pdf

Steven A. Camarota is the Director of Research and Ashley Monique Webster a demographerat the Center for Immigration Studies.

Governor Rick Perry (R-Texas) has pointed to job growth in Texas during the current economic downturn as one of his main accomplishments. But analysis of Current Population Survey (CPS) data collected by the Census Bureau show that immigrants (legal and illegal) have been the primary beneficiaries of this growth since 2007, not native-born workers. This is true even though the native-born accounted for the vast majority of growth in the working-age population (age 16 to 65) in Texas. Thus, they should have received the lion’s share of the increase in employment. As a result, the share of working-age natives in Texas holding a job has declined in a manner very similar to the nation a whole.

Among the findings:

• Of jobs created in Texas since 2007, 81 percent were taken by newly arrived immigrant workers (legal and illegal).

• In terms of numbers, between the second quarter of 2007, right before the recession began, and the second quarter of 2011, total employment in Texas increased by 279,000. Of this, 225,000 jobs went to immigrants (legal and illegal) who arrived in the United States in 2007 or later.

• Of newly arrived immigrants who took a job in Texas, 93 percent were not U.S. citizens. Thus government data show that more than three-fourths of net job growth in Texas were taken by newly arrived non-citizens (legal and illegal).

• The large share of job growth that went to immigrants is surprising because the native-born accounted for 69 percent of the growth in Texas’ working-age population (16 to 65). Thus, even though natives made up most of the growth in potential workers, most of the job growth went to immigrants.

• The share of working-age natives holding a job in Texas declined significantly, from 71 percent in 2007 to 67 percent in 2011. This decline is very similar to the decline for natives in the United States as a whole and is an indication that the situation for native-born workers in Texas is very similar to the overall situation in the country despite the state’s job growth.

• Of newly arrived immigrants who took jobs in Texas since 2007, we estimate that 50 percent (113,000) were illegal immigrants. Thus, about 40 percent of all the job growth in Texas since 2007 went to newly arrived illegal immigrants and 40 percent went to newly arrived legal immigrants.

• Immigrants took jobs across the educational distribution. More than one out three (97,000) of newly arrived immigrants who took a job had at least some college.

• These numbers raise the question of whether it makes sense to continue the current high level of legal immigration and also whether to continue to tolerate illegal immigration.

Introduction

One of the most important issues in the unfolding presidential election is the nation’s lack of job growth. The U.S. labor market has been afflicted with high unemployment and low employment rates for more than three years. As Republicans go through the process of selecting the party’s nominee, job growth in Texas during the current economic downturn has been the subject of much discussion. GOP frontrunner Rick Perry has argued that he has a proven record of job creation in his state, even during the current economic downturn. Most of the debate over the state’s job growth has focused on what types of jobs have been created. The extent to which foreign-born or immigrant workers vs. native-born workers benefited from increased employment in the state has received little attention. This Memorandum examines job growth in Texas. The findings indicate that most of the increase in jobs in Texas since 2007 went to foreign-born (immigrant) workers, both legal and illegal, not U.S.-born workers.

Data and Methods

The two primary employment surveys collected by the United States government are referred to as the “household surveyâ€